Pope Gregory X had selected Lyon as the location for this fourteenth ecumenical council because it had been the site of the thirteenth, but also because it was clearly outside the territory of Charles I of Anjou, whose motivations he never trusted.2
The pope’s intention was nothing less than to reunite the two branches of the Christian Church: East and West. To that end, Gregory X invited emissaries of the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII in an effort to repair rifts that had occurred between the two branches of Christendom two centuries earlier, during what was known as the Great Schism. Emperor Michael had just retaken Constantinople from the hands of Western princes, whom he then kindly asked to maintain their own kingdoms and leave the Eastern Church alone. Gregory reached out to him for reasons of his own, and Michael agreed to send his ambassadors to Lyon.
Before the distinguished visitors and guests arrived to meet Gregory X, hanging like a pall over the Second Council of Lyon was the death of the Western Church’s greatest theologian, Thomas Aquinas. Summoned by the pope to attend the Council, Aquinas died en route on March 7, 1274, after sustaining a wound to his head after striking it on a tree. There were those who suspected Charles I of playing a sinister role in murdering the great theologian since one of Aquinas’s many teachings was that an illegitimate king could rightfully be overthrown by the people or the pope, even by means of regicide, if it was God’s pleasure. This was a controversial idea particularly in the era of the “divine right of kings,” and certainly Charles took note of such insolence. But he didn’t kill Aquinas. Those theories have long ago been discounted.
The other great thinker to die in connection with the Council was the Franciscan Bonaventure, who came to his end during the Council’s final week, on July 15, 1274, while he was attending the sessions. And as we mentioned in chapter two, he was poisoned.
There were other spectacles in Lyon. The gathering was the stuff of great theater. Men gathered from all over the known world, as far east as Iran and as far west as Ireland, with attendants donning various types of ceremonial dress. There were cardinals and bishops, princes and mercenaries. The Persian Il-khanate, part of the Mongol Empire, sent a delegation, because his people were hoping to enlist the aid of their Christian counterparts to fight their common enemy the Muslim Mamluks. While in Lyon, the leader of the Il-Khans, Abaqa Khan (1234–82), appears to have instructed some of his delegation to undergo Christian baptism, as a goodwill gesture, much to the shock of those present. The ceremony was conducted by none other than the bishop of Ostia, the future Pope Innocent V.
Abaqa Khan was renowned for working closely with Christians throughout his rule, usually in efforts to defeat Muslims, but also in genuine attempts to form peaceful alliances of other kinds. He had no designs upon Christian lands in the West; his only aim was to maintain his own kingdom’s footing in the East. But it remains a mystery as to why he went to the extent of having some among his party baptized. No doubt he did not understand that for Christians new life and responsibilities underlie the ritual. The assent to be baptized, interpreted as conversions by people like Gregory X and Edward I of England, must have had a more confused legacy in the Persian East, as many of the coins and emblems of the Mongol’s rule—still seen in museums around the world today—display Christian symbols, including “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
Between May 7 and July 17, delegates gathered around Pope Gregory X to discuss issues of worldwide ecclesiastical importance. Hundreds of bishops listened and occasionally debated the viability of uniting the churches, securing lost outposts such as Acre, and keeping the Muslims at bay. A variety of measures were on the table, and constitutions were written on such topics as financing new Crusades through taxation, the importance of excommunicating pirates who acted outside of recognized boundaries of behavior during Crusades, and the plenary indulgence granted to any man willing to join a holy campaign. A resolution was passed saying the Church must henceforth take more seriously the decision made earlier in the century to prohibit the founding of new religious orders. Abaqa Khan left the Council with a resolution declaring that the Western Church would coordinate with the Il-Khans before launching any more campaigns against their mutual enemies upon the eastern border of their kingdoms in Syria and Egypt.3 Such cooperation would never materialize, however, because the crusading spirit had ebbed out of the papacy and the princes, including Charles I; they were more interested in securing the lands of Western European Christendom than in risking further losses in the Holy Land.
Also at the Council of Lyon, Pope Gregory X was able to secure agreement from Emperor Michael VIII for a full reunification of the Eastern Church with the West, including an acquiescence regarding Rome’s primacy. But when Michael VIII returned home to his empire, there was insufficient backing from among the clergy and bishops of the Greek churches for any further action to be taken on such an agreement. And for his part in participating in this attempt to unify the churches, even today Michael VIII Palaeologus is referred to as a traitor by many Eastern Christians.
At Lyon Gregory X also instituted his new instructions on the election of future popes in conclave. As we saw in chapter two, it was at the ecumenical council of 1274 that the rules for conclaves were laid out in detail (only to be rescinded by Gregory’s successors). All of these resolutions were made into ecclesiastical law by papal decree on November 1.
For his part, Peter ended up arriving late. He had walked to Lyon in order to plead for the continued ecclesiastical independence and protection of his still relatively new brotherhood. But by the time he arrived many of the delegates had already left and all were mourning the death of Aquinas. A solemnity hung over the streets from the weight of business being conducted.
Still, Peter found his way to representatives of Pope Gregory X and achieved his goal: his brotherhood of hermits would be formally incorporated as a branch of the Benedictine order. A new order would not be created, as the Council had just admonished themselves for permitting too many new orders to be founded over the previous century. The Hermits of Saint Damian would remain under the Benedictine umbrella. But even more important to Peter, at the suggestion of Pope Gregory, the monasteries would be protected by Charles I of Anjou, who already controlled all of the territory surrounding the order’s many oratories. Peter was jubilant. A victory had been won.
Settling Down for Good
As he and his brothers made their way back to the Abruzzi, they traveled through the Mediterranean port city of Genoa, where they may have visited with Jacobus Voragine, the archbishop, who was at that moment finishing his compilation of the lives of the saints that would come to be known as The Golden Legend. From Genoa they made their way south through Florence, the capital city of Tuscany, where the Italian florin, the gold coin that became Europe’s standard currency, had originated. There they probably sought support for their efforts in the form of money or supplies, as well as the donation of Tuscan property for the foundation of a new religious community for their order. From Florence they traveled down into the scattered and more remote and familiar hill towns of Umbria and then Abruzzo, eventually stopping for a night on a hill known as Collemaggio on the outskirts of L’Aquila, not far from Peter’s childhood home.
Settling down for the night on this hillside, Peter fell asleep in his makeshift cell and began to dream. According to the story that he himself told late in life and that was repeated throughout his canonization hearings decades later, the Virgin Mary appeared to Peter surrounded by angels on stairs of gold, a vision reminiscent of the story of Jacob’s Ladder in the book of Genesis. The Blessed Virgin asked Peter to build a church in her honor. He took note of this, but then the next morning, Peter rose early and he and his companions continued on their way back to Santo Spirito, another two days away. Finally, on Maiella, Peter triumphantly convened the first general chapter of his order with all of his brethren present from the communities across Molise and Abruzzo, joyfully informing them all of Gregory X’s bles
sing on their efforts. It was then that the Hermits of Saint Damian formally reiterated that the Rule of Saint Benedict was to be their rule of life.
But Peter didn’t forget his dream at Collemaggio. In fact, he told others about it, and again, by the skills of fund-raising, organization, and persuasion that characterized the hermit’s adult life, by 1283 he and his brothers had purchased the Collemaggio hill near L’Aquila and broken ground for a church to be dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Five years later they consecrated the as yet unfinished structure Santa Maria of Collemaggio, the Basilica of Saint Mary.
This was a bittersweet time for Peter. Certainly, he had done the work of the Blessed Mother, but the basilica would also increase the popularity of the St. Damian Hermits. In turn, more pilgrims and tourists would flock to the man who after intense moments of activity and creativity only seemed to desire to be alone again with his God.4
His primary work was done, but Peter’s reputation grew ever more rapidly. In 1276 the monastery at which he had entered religious life, Santa Maria of Faifula, convinced him to return as their part-time abbot. And three years later, he also took on the abbot’s responsibilities of San Giovanni monastery in the diocese of Lucera, part of the Foggia province in southern Italy.
In the fifteen years after the Second Council of Lyon, from 1275 to 1290, his name was often heard in the corridors of power. The papal curia and the royal courts of Naples, Sicily, Paris, Avignon, and beyond knew of his fame as a mystic and leader of men. He was said to possess miraculous powers of healing. In 1280, at the age of seventy-one, Peter took a journey to Rome. There he was met with plaudits, came to know more men of influence, and was granted two more monasteries for his work of turning common men into angels. Throughout his sixties and seventies, this hermit who longed for intense periods of seclusion was one of the most peripatetic of holy men, visiting his growing collection of religious houses. By the time he was seventy-six, in 1285, he had acquired another already established monastery, San Pietro, in the Abruzzi near Manoppello.5
All during this time, Peter’s renown hindered him from living the solitary religious life that he envisioned for himself and his brothers. He didn’t seem to grasp how his desires for stability and security and his need for recognition and adulation from his religious colleagues conflicted with his otherwise spiritual, sometimes very personal, religious intentions. It seemed that whenever he accomplished something great before the eyes of others, he soon felt the need to retreat from sight. Perhaps he wanted to model his life on the life of Jesus, who spent his public life healing and teaching, only to retreat into the desert, push out into the sea, or settle himself in a secluded garden or a mountaintop, to pray for a while.
After serving as abbot for several abbeys for decades, by 1293, when he was eighty-three, Peter was weary of the attention and the responsibility of governing communities of monks, and he moved away from sight once more. The essentially restless eremite returned to his previous home, to the now more quiet environs of Mount Morrone. Grateful to be back where he’d spent the first years of his solitary vocation, he settled into a regular life of solitude, begging to simply be left alone.
On Mount Morrone Peter found a small grotto where he could pursue his faith in quietude. It became a treasured place to him. Into the rocky face of the mountain he built a special oratory he named Eremo di Sant’Onofrio (the Hermitage of St. Onofrio).
Onofrio is Italian for the Latin name Onuphrius, a fifth-century hermit in Upper Egypt. He’s a mythical figure, revered as a monk who left the monastery for the eremitic life and exemplified the solitary life with valor, courage, and tenacity. In iconography, Onofrio is usually depicted with long, wild hair and a loincloth made entirely of leaves. He looks like the original “wild man,” and he was even called such in his own day, only to become the favorite saint of hermits a few centuries later.
Although Peter would ultimately spend only one year at Onofrio before the world again came calling, in the space of that year the place became recognized around the world for its piety. Like Moses on Sinai, Peter communed with the Almighty upon Morrone. For Peter, that year, 1293, was one of intense dedication to private, mental prayer. Begging to be left alone, once again a cave became Peter’s room, and a rock, his pillow.
Peter of Morrone … beware of the cheats,
Who’d have you think, that
Black is white and white is black as ink.
If in their snares you unguardedly sink,
You will sing your song most evilly.
—JACOPONE OF TODI
“Epistle to Pope Celestine V”
11
OBSESSED WITH SALVATION
The people of the Middle Ages were obsessed with salvation, with the fate of their souls and bodies after life on earth was over. Perhaps this has been true of every people in every era everywhere, but it was especially true of thirteenth-century men and women.
Wandering preachers would expound on a verse like Ecclesiastes 12:7: “and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it,” while holding up skulls for their crowd’s inspection. Look on this! For it will very soon be you! they would shout. The prospect of biological death was terrifying—is terrifying, still—but imagine the grip that it had on people who knew nothing of modern science. People of the Middle Ages relied on religion alone to explain life and death. They had not yet entered the period of Enlightenment when the traditions, texts, and worldviews of religion could be either challenged or counterbalanced with scientific understandings of germs, viruses, and sanitation. Death was even more certain then than it is now. After death, how could a person be sure that her eternity would be heavenly? In those days, the answer was simple: only through the graces of the Church.
Then, as now, Christians confessed their sins to their priest and after confession, sought absolution and forgiveness. Usually a penance was imposed by the priest, often small deeds to be done or prayers to be said. Sometimes the priest would ask the penitent to make a pilgrimage, usually to a local shrine because most people at the time had little money and means for making longer journeys—although there were instances when a journey to Jerusalem would be recommended. A journey of that magnitude would heal a soul of nearly any sin that had been committed, simply because of the connection it would establish between the sinner and the earthly presence of Christ. Such a connection was more powerful to the medieval imagination than that of Christ in the Eucharist—because the average man or woman was rarely if ever permitted to receive Holy Communion. Concern for salvation and belief in the afterlife, including the trials of purgatory—where souls go to be made ready for heaven—were so intense that seeking indulgences (remission of punishment for sins) measured in days became common. At this time, indulgences were granted to Christians who paid money to the Church. For instance, one could earn a reprieve of one hundred days in purgatory for contributing a day’s wages to the construction of a new church. Or two hundred days’ escape from purgatory if you walked the Road to Santiago.
At the time of the First Crusade (1095), when Pope Urban II was whipping up audiences with fervor to join the cause, he was known to say: “Each man who joins in God’s work to free the Holy Land will have his entire penance remitted!” This was one of the first instances of what came to be called an indulgence. The word carries a connotation today of a parent extending special grace and forgiveness to a child. So it was to the medieval sinner. But the indulgence granted by Urban II to the would-be crusader was atypical; it was a plenary indulgence—one that carried forgiveness for a lifetime’s worth of venial (forgivable) sin. Join the Crusade and if you die during the holy cause your salvation is guaranteed, no stop in purgatory necessary, no matter what sins you may have previously committed. That was the promise. Such was the obsession with salvation that men would leave home and family and travel across the world to fight and likely die from wounds or starvation—because of the promise of eternal rest for their souls. Obviously, after this time t
he practice of granting indulgences for money went too far, and the Church, in time, came to acknowledge its own sin, admitting, “No institution, however holy, has entirely escaped abuse through the malice or unworthiness of man.”1
But indulgences were popular while Peter was growing up. They were to be had at many of the great churches of Rome and elsewhere. The practice became so widespread by 1215 that the Church began putting limits on them. The Fourth Lateran Council limited the length of time to forty days maximum that could be offered by any bishop to one who observed the feast day of a patron saint. This decree doesn’t seem to have been followed, however, as it was reissued time and again in the decades that followed.2
There was too much power in the hands of the Church in general and the pope in particular. Movements and reforms were at work—including vernacular translations of Scripture, the reformation of monastic orders, and the growth of lay movements such as the flagellants—that would slowly and naturally ease some of this power away from the hierarchy, putting greater spiritual responsibility into the hands of individual believers.
Salvation, broadly speaking, began to be offered in other aspects of life. During this century universities of higher learning were founded, opening up a new avenue for study and advancement that wasn’t completely overseen by the Church. Young men had new career options, including studying to become physicians and surgeons and lawyers working in civil courts, just as earlier becoming a knight or a soldier was a choice for young men who wanted to serve the Church. As an example of the latter, Guibert of Nogent wrote: “God has instituted in our time holy wars, so that the order of knights and the crowd running in their wake … might find a new way of gaining salvation. And so they are not forced to abandon secular affairs completely by choosing the monastic life or any religious profession … but can attain in some measure God’s grace while pursuing their own careers.”3 There were many ways to find freedom in this world and the next.
The Pope Who Quit Page 10
